When We Fight Back

Posted on Nov 24, 2011

Morality in the land of the free is a curious mix of Tinkertoys and torture racks. We have just witnessed a full week of brutal coordinated police assaults upon peaceful protesters. The Occupy movement must therefore rise to a new level of coordinated and class-conscious actions against the corporate state. But let’s not be seen in public with signs saying, “They only call it class war when we fight back.” We might frighten away all our potential friends in high places. Every last member of the Occupy movement must have the patience of the saints while being pepper sprayed, or else the ruling class will not enjoy three square meals of duly seasoned sacrificial lambs.

Certain front groups of the Democratic Party, including MoveOn, have sought to force the wider Occupy movement into the narrow channel of their chosen corporate party. And the more bureaucratic labor unions such as the SEIU (dominated by labor bosses aligned with the Democratic Party) have also taken up the 99 percent slogan. Although working people are welcome, labor union bosses should be reminded that they remain bosses. Indeed, the Occupy movement is a public forum in which workers can call into question the class collaboration of their own union leaders.

So we shall see just who is better at changing minds about this capitalist system. Socialists should avoid triumphalist rhetoric, since we, the people, now face grinding regimes of austerity round the world. Austerity is demanded by international banks and corporate regimes. This is the strong medicine the doctors order for malingering patients in Greece, Spain, Italy and, soon enough, most of Europe. Just as several officially “socialist” parties joined in the enforcement of austerity in Europe, Democratic politicians are willing partners in the enforcement of an austerity regime in the United States.

Make no mistake: The corporate state is still strong. That’s why Ray Lewis, the retired Philadelphia police captain who went to New York City to protest police abuse of Occupy Wall Street protesters (and was arrested), is more than welcome in our ranks.

No class-conscious worker or socialist will be surprised that many members of the police are also questioning the “excesses” of capitalism. But such excesses are not mere statistical blips; these excesses are predictable though they do not run on strict timetables. The boom and bust cycles of the “free market” are structural elements of the profit system much in the way steel and glass are structural elements of the corporate mausoleums of Manhattan. These excesses are necessary consequences of the whole structure of waged and unwaged exploitation. But police officers willing to risk their own jobs to join insurgent political protests still remain a small minority. Yes, police are members of the 99 percent, just as the Occupy movement has always claimed. Especially in times of open class struggle, however, the police are also paid to defend the power and profits of the 1 percent. If we ever forget this fact then we may be sentimentalists, but we are not giving our ideals a fair chance in the real world.

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Do you happen to be solidly comfortable? Good for you! No harm in comfort. But do you really want to be a rich person in a poor country? The real problem is not that you might own an Aston Martin or a nearly Olympic-size swimming pool. That merely makes you a lover of luxury, or a dweller in the hills of Malibu. After all, a fraction of filthy rich aristocrats took up the republican cause in revolutionary France, and in 2006 nothing kept Daryl Hannah from occupying a walnut tree during the defense of a community farm in Los Angeles. If a bad conscience, or a good friend, or simply a deeply rooted aesthetic aversion to the brutal built environment of big American cities moves you to cross over the lines of class and join the Occupy movement, then please feel right at home. You may not be a working-class hero but you are an evolving human being. That is good enough.

Like the Catholic Church, the Occupy movement also welcomes late vocations. We are all pickled alive in the rancid vinegar of class culture, and as the Gospel of St. John declares, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Most comfortable people have our own dear reasons for enjoying luxuries whose cost might feed a hungry family for a week in Appalachia or in North Philly. We may not be called to be St. Francis, much less professional revolutionaries, but we are called to be citizens so long as we pretend to defend this republic.

So if you really must vote by rote, at least take a public risk once in a while in some other realm. Or if your conscience has truly atrophied into a mental appendix, maybe you should have it surgically removed before it causes any future headaches.

(Tacoma, WA) As we make our way back to the ranch this week, it’s with sincere regret that we leave. Family, friends, and especially time spent with Clif who expects to have the next web bot run out by mid next week - at latest. and, in case you missed hit, there’s a continuing accrual of data suggesting the PowersThatBe/Were will, in a final act of desperation, touch of World War III in order to cover their crimes, as Clif previews here.

Yeowie!!!! Glitzy Persian music channel/station???!!! Internet
linkup… Music is great. Thanks. I searched the entire site to see
what is there. Lots of entertainment. I do see they really like Las
Vegas. I’ve downoaded the link.

But who would have thought the US Army would advertise on a
Persian website???!!!

Not a pretty picture. Tucker has a point, but like others have been saying,
it’s long past time to start naming names and getting these morally
bankrupt individuals out of positions of power. How? By getting ourselves
into power. It’s the only way. And for us proletariat, it’s going to be an
uphill climb with obstacles-galore. I sincerely hope honest,working people
from all walks of life and income brackets are beginning to think in terms
of solidarity; there is no other way this system we have will ever change
for the better with a super-rich entitled “class”, or 1%, controlling
everything. I am no social engineer but I believe very strongly that there is
a better system, a better way of maintaining a civilized and just society,
that no one has conceived of yet. Human beings have flaws and always
will, so I don’t harbor Utopian fantasies of a perfect world. But I know if
good people can come together and are willing to fight,even die, for the
promise of a better way, it can and will be done. Why can’t we do this?
The tools are there…we need to connect and build and organize,as
painstaking as it may be, and get involved. I agree with poster djnoll
that,since the political system in this country seems to be a can of worms
that’ll only open from the inside, we need to see the next national election
as an opportunity for we, the People, to make an impact. If not now,when?
If not us, who?

$$$$$ determines quality of life and opportunity in America. (Access to education, health care, home ownership, etc.) The greed of the so called 1% established that reality. The fight for a “living wage” and humane working conditions created the Unions. If $$$$$ is the issue Unions are in a real position to lead the dialogue. I appreciate the numbers SHENON. If Unions are to be a funder and a voice in this fight for a rebirth of American Democracy labor and the OWS need to clear the air of Wall Street propagandist distortion and the Unions need to clean house.

Do Americans now understand why there was such a widespread call by governors across the country for people to turn in their weapons? Someway, somehow, the government knew such protests were coming and if we, the people, have any guts, it won’t end with peaceful actions. That is like begging the corporate state to help. It will never voluntarily help.

Never mind that it was the blood, sweat and tears of our forefathers and their forefathers who amassed all the wealth for them. Their care about this is buried under tons of money——, our money, and they’re not about to surrender it back to us.

Funny, how the corporate state doesn’t seem to realize that they cannot exist without us peons feeding their coffers; how they don’t know that when we’re starved or frozen to death. they will follow.

Labor has always voted Democratic. Labor does not represent all
of the employed in America. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
in 2010, the union membership rate—the percent of wage and
salary workers who were members of a union—was 11.9 percent,
down from 12.3 percent a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers
belonging to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million. In 1983,
the first year for which comparable union data are available, the
union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7
million union workers. 12% would not command too much of a
political constituency. They are more effective being a voice that
influences the larger party that represents the liberal values of this
country.

You will give a reference for your specious claim about Trumka using
the term 99 in 2009, own’t you Imax? There is no reason to believe
your invention. Trumka wasn’t even elected President of the AFL-CIO
until September 16, 2009.

The genesis of Occupy began in 2007 at Adbusters and their Buy
Nothing Day, - article dated November 25, 2011
The Ad Man Behind Occupy Wall Street, and ‘Buy Nothing Day’ – Andrew
C. Revkin – New York Times Opinion Pages http://tinyurl.com/764y9z3

The term 99ers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99ers
had its birth from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed
by Congress in February 2009 when unemployed people could receive up
to 99 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits

The VOTE continues as our most powerful weapon or the Rethugs wouldn’t be fighting so hard to undermine it. Don’t mistake frustration with a skewed and distorted system with powerlessness. Personal political action always overcomes hopelessness. It changes the game and more importantly, the dialogue. Is OWS not doing so?

We’ve all agreed that divide and conquer is part of propagandist strategy. Again. Do you believe we’d have the impasse and Rethug highjacking of our Democracy if the Dems held both House and Senate? I agree that both parties are compromised but until we get organized O and local action is all we’ve got.

A poster lamented the fact Mr. Tucker didn’t name names. That’s a core problem. The MSM allows the criminals to remain anonymous. The current destruction of America (union busting-privitization (-military puppet rule-cuts in social services-etc.) are all classic Chicago Boys/Friedmaniac policy. It represents a perfected system of looting that has destroyed Democracies all over our World. Washington is just the sideshow they hide behind. They need to be outed and a part of every political conversation. They’re the ones screwing us, O, Timmy G., Boehner and Cantor are just their puppets.

We know the democratic establishment, along with large Labor organizations, have lent Occupy support nearly from its inception.

Is it an accident that Richard Trumka and AFL-CIO used the “99” slogan as far back as May of 2009? Is it an accident that Occupy gave voice to the very same issues as the President of the United States? Coincidence or not, I support it.

-

Who began OWS?

Did ‘Occupy’ find its roots, as many believe, in a small group of young American activists in Zuccotti Park? Or did it find its roots in a highly organized and well funded group of idialogs with a plan (tea party, anyone?)?

The domain name, occupywallstreetorg, was registered 09-Jun-2011 by the following:

Shenonymous—Counting on the Republicans to be sufficiently crazy to dis-elect themselves is, I think, a very dubious strategy. It worked in 2006 and 2008, didn’t work in 2010. In 2012 they can run Plastic Man Romney and pull in their horns until after the election. If what I read about Geithner is true, the Democrats have a very serious problem, not with us radicals, but with their real base. They’re disconnected.

The USA has the biggest army in the world. Unless it is off fighting a war somewhere there is no justification to spend more money on it than all other democratic countries combined.

Besides, as the Little Shrub showed, it appears to be an excellent way to whip up patriotic fervour in a significant part of the population, who unsurprisingly tend to vote republican, or are not opposed to do so. And of course it also helps foster an ‘us versus them’ mentality in the country and a ‘if you are not for us then you are a traitor’ mood to silence criticism.
Not to mention that a foreign war is a good way to get those young men who might otherwise cause trouble back hom out of the country and hopefully die while taking some of those heathens with them.

No, if you want to maintain the political, social and economical status quo then starting another big war is a good way to do so. Obama might not be inclined to start bombing Iran, but it is obvious that the majority of the republican presidential candidates are champing at the bit to let other people do the dying so they can look strong and powerful (and have snazzy pictures taken of them in uniform as if they too are brave soldiers risking their life for a corrupt cause).
And even Obama may be finessed into a war he may not want, because the information he must base his decisions on is filtered through a thick and murky layer of special interests in the various intelligence and financial branches that make up his advisors. If his handlers in the CIA and Wallstreet decide that it is the country’s best interest (actually their personal interest but they have no doubt convinced themselves to be so far above the ignorant masses that their personal and the national interest are one and the same) to declare war on Iran they will steer the information the president and the public receives into the direction where it seems that war is inevitable. And of course Iran can see the signs as well and even in the unlikely event that they were not working towards a nuclear weapon before they most certainly are now, and they want to have it available before the american public can be whipped up to a state where they are ready to embrace yet another war.

Depending on if these people want to support a republican bid for presidency or not expect an increasing amount of ‘news’ about the danger that Iran poses to the USA over the next 7 months, culminating in a manufactured ‘crisis’ around mid september that can be used by the republican spin doctors to make Obama look weak and the ‘tough talking’ republican candidate appear the right person to lead the country (into another devastating war).
Or the ‘threat’ posed by Iran will be left to simmer for the next year and quickly boil up after the election forcing Obama (because he is likely to be re-elected given how 7 of 8 candidates will send the majority of the undecided voters running the other way and the 8th will send the republican voters run away) into an action he says he does not want to take and that will once and for all shoot down the believability of him and the democrat party even with his staunchest supporters.

Trumpeting that “Obama” has passed 244 legislative actions through congress, which are wonderfully beneficial for “Americans”, while blogging that, “The fact that Republicans’ every act is to annihilate, butcher, massacre, obliterate every single legislative action Obama has put to the Congress- - “ is somewhat antithetical.

As per usual, the truth lies in neither of your two postulates.

The decline and dissolution of the U.S. continues via the corporate cooperation of both Dem and Rep “parties”.

Article quote:“Certain front groups of the Democratic Party,
including MoveOn, have sought to force the wider
Occupy movement into the narrow channel of their
chosen corporate party. And the more bureaucratic
labor unions such as the SEIU (dominated by labor
bosses aligned with the Democratic Party) have also
taken up the 99 percent slogan.”

Mr Tucker, it appears you are laying claim to the
VOICE of the 99%. You may want to rethink that
paradigm.You act as if the 99% can’t be a part of the 99% (unless it’s okay with YOU of course).

And it is YOU and YOU alone, one possessed of
crystaline knowledge and valiant fortitude, that
to which even the Gods fall green with envy. Lo, it is to
this voice that all, on bended knee shall refrain.
Your voice, so grandiosely (if not
delusionally) rises up to proclaim the aspirations of
the wanton and denigrated masses. Yeh though we walk in the oiled blacktop and drink of the brew to you we shall seek refuge in our discontent. And when the winters cold does freeze Ye shall thaw us with your hot breeze.

I don’t disagree Anarcissie, with most of what you say. But if
what you say is true, and I think it is on this in particular, that
“the Democratic ranks are really, really hostile to the adminis-
tration he [Geithner] works for,” whatever method they’ve
adopted to try to sink the Ark of the Democratic Covenant, then
that more or less corroborates what I’ve said that all Democrats
are not cut of the same cloth. And while I am among those in
the Democratic ranks who were livid over Obama offering up as
sacrificial lambs Social Security and Medicare, and there are those
whose voice speak for us, Bernie Sanders in particular, but there are
others, I am conflicted but not to the degree that I would abandon my
Democratic bearings. A little over a week ago, Sanders spoke for my
view precisely and admonished Congress on the causes of the deficit
that the doomed to fail Supercommittee was supposed to resolve but
didn’t, and that there was absolutely no reason to touch Social Security.

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/media/view/?id=b15a7d8d-56fd-47c0-a61f-adcbf21eba4b
“The American people can make a decision in this election, which side are
they on?” says Sanders, and that is about the size of it. It must not be
forgotten that Democrats unexpectedly won that special election in New
York earlier this year by attacking the Republican candidate, Jane Corwin,
as an enemy of Medicare, based on her views on the Ryan budget plan.

I do disagree, however that Obama is in as much trouble as is theorized
by some popular pundits and the crabbing leftists. The fact that Republicans’
every act is to annihilate, butcher, massacre, obliterate every single legislative
action Obama has put to the Congress will in the end, help him win re-election
in spite of my discontent and that of a multitude of other Democrats. The
intention of the Republicans to force the perception that government doesn’t
work under a Democratic president is a calculation that they can take control
of our government and funnel the national resources to the wealthiest by
privatizing all government services id going to backfire on them. The
Republican crusade of Contract On America and No Taxes Pledges are
destroying the middle and lower classes and the middle and lower classes
know it. These roaches need to be defeated in every election possible and
while it is a franchise of the politically unhappy to promote a third-party
political force I do not see it actually affecting what is going to be manifestly
evident, which is a return of the government to the liberals.

Shenonymous, November 25 at 5:11 pm:
‘... Scott Tucker may think he represents all of OWS or the 99% but
he is just as provincial in his thinking as those who are criticizing
the Occupy Movement. He makes the same categorical mistake.
Nothing could be farther from the truth that there is no difference
between Democrats and Republicans and makes Tucker sound as
though he is attempting to set Republicans up for a win in 2012. ...’

As I read the article, he says there is a difference between them, and he does not seem to be representing anyone but himself and, possibly, ‘socialists’. In any case, he does not have the power to set up the Republicans for a win in 2012; Obama and the other establishment Democrats have done that far beyond the power of any marginal radicals to alter the situation.

I think Mr. O and his friends broke the chain when he appeared ready to surrender Social Security and Medicare, the Ark of the Democratic Covenant. It is not at all unreasonable to suppose that it was not the lifeless Democratic leadership, but OWS and the upsurge of popular revolt which stalled that development—temporarily. I read somewhere that Geithner was astounded to learn that the Democratic ranks are really, really hostile to the administration he works for, who seem to be following the Marie Antoinette method for achieving popularity and success. They certainly learned nothing from the election of 2010.

Those disaffected Democrats are the people you need to worry about if you want to reelect Mr. O, not the readers of Truthdig or the activists of OWS. I think you’ve got your work cut out for you.

For those who t don’t know. A very brief history of the two-party
system in the US. Revisions to clarify are welcome by anyone who
so desires,
1.
Early Americans declared independence because they wanted
change. Taxation without representation caused them much
grief and frustration. The abuse they endured at the hands of
the British deep resentment; the British burned their houses,
crops, and stole their livestock as well as suffering unjust judges
and corrupt civic leaders. They quit buying tea and began to drink
more coffee. The passion for change carried over into colonial politics.
They did not forget the political system that existed in England and the
“mudslinging” that described English politics. Colonialists were certain
that political parties were the problem and Jefferson and Madison did
not want to have political parties in the new government.

However, there was a huge problem with the “no party system”, a
serious lack of organization. As a result nearly nothing could get
done. It was very unlikely a new piece of legislation could get passed
and if there was any success it simply took a very long time. The
system would get hung up all the time. (Does this sound familiar?)
It was frustrating and chaotic no matter what anyone’s social or
economical position is some sort of organization was obviously
needed.

By 1792 t two parties were competing for control. The Federalist Party
and Alexander Hamilton was its leader. even though Jefferson and
Madison did not want political parties determine the new government,
they form he Democratic-Republican Party to be in opposition to
Hamilton. But the parties actually achieved the organization needed
to run the wheels of government. Up to Monroe’s presidency, there was
an Era of Good Feelings. But it didn’t last too long. In 1824 the “Second
Party System” arrived. The Democratic-Republican Party split into two
groups, the “Jacksonian” group later became the Democratic Party as it
is known today. Henry Clay took his bunch to the old loyalists, Whig
Party, which later was overpowered by the Republican Party when the
slavery issue came up.

The slavery issue instigated a division of the parties because a large
part of the economy depended on plantation slavery in the southern
states. The economic ramifications of ending slavery were immense.
To complicate matters, the South was fueled with religious passion that
made it quite apparent that this issue demanded citizens to pick sides.

2.
The parties published a platform clearly stating which each side
stood for. It was clear to all who read them that both parties agreed
on most things, to some degree or another, except the slavery issue.
The general agreement between the parties that prevailed after the
war was over would not last long. An extremely divisive problem
arose known as the “Free Silver Issue” from a major discovery of silver
in Nevada, which provided a huge load of the precious metal. The
Democrat Party’s simplistic concept based the value of the US dollar
not on gold, it would use silver. Silver was cheaper and more readily
available. In theory the less fortunate people would be able to have
more dollars, they would spend more dollars, the economy would be
better. That sounded good. BUT…the sad truth was that other countries
the US traded with used gold as their standard . By changing America’s
would mean a readjustment to the debts owed to a higher dollar amount
as the US dollar just would now not be worth as much. Furthermore, it
would be very difficult for the accountants at all the banks as well,
having to refigure all mortgages, farm loans etc. to a new dollar
amount. It was to be an accountant’s nightmare!

So while the idea behind the Free Silver issue would give more actual
dollars to the less fortunate, it essentially would take away more from
the wealthy or middle class. The Democrats who stood for the Free
Silver Issue claimed that the “enemies of silver” used “secret” and
“middle of the night” meetings” to ensure that gold remained the
standard.

Republicans became criticized as “the party of the rich” or “the party
of the business owners” an image that still tinges the conservatives
today. 19th c. newspaper cartoons portrayed the Republicans as greedy,
money hoarding ogres. And in some cases the Democrats were pictured
as considerate of the poor and ready to help, while in other newspapers
depicted as treating the poor kindly in words while “stabbing them in the
back” financially. Much like political extremists right…and left today.

Having two parties helps to organize social and economic issues and
debates. Although there are more than two political parties existing
today the Democrat and Republican parties are the biggest and currently
the most powerful. There are without a doubt huge differences between
the parties, on taxes, social issues, and international relations the parties
could not be more different. That dichotomy isn’t likely to change
anytime soon.

What drives many progressives or leftists to madness is that so-called
Democratic politicians seem to be just as are the Republicans in the
pockets of the wealthy class. But it must be remembered that it is
the politicians not the general Democratic public.

all these bouncing metaphors and self rightous condemnations and profiling as
spokesman of the oppressed in neo marxist rethoric aint gonna save anyone.
it began back when G Bush got elected and launched into his little war. No one
saw it comming—why not? it takes pain for class consciousness to be realized
it is painfull to get up and go to work but you have to learn the hard way if you
can’t see or think a few steps ahead. Now we are getting the pain from go along
Now oh now we see the thread now we can look back and see the dots connecting.
but our memory is weak and it is selective.
Not a dimes worth of difference between Bush and the other guy you say. Please
Mr. cynic if you can’t see beyond that political bromide there is little hope for you.
No difference between Bush and his policies and the other guy? Just a world of
shit’s worth. If revolution is your cup of soup you might try reading a little history
about subject that before you get so quick to jump into the soup.

Scott Tucker may think he represents all of OWS or the 99% but
he is just as provincial in his thinking as those who are criticizing
the Occupy Movement. He makes the same categorical mistake.
Nothing could be farther from the truth that there is no difference
between Democrats and Republicans and makes Tucker sound as
though he is attempting to set Republicans up for a win in 2012.
It is more than re-electing Obama, it is a matter of electing
Congressmen/women who will vote on behalf of the general public.
Third parties are not making much headway in electing members to
Congress. Out of over 500 members of Congress, House and Senate,
there are two successful third-party politicians: Only two! Independents
Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman. Sanders always votes with
Democrats, and he is not in the pocket of the corporate world. But
Lieberman who always votes with the conservatives, is.

Tucker’s assessment is wrong. Based on the evidence is the
shithole this country has been dumped into by the Tea Party
dominated Republican Party and the torture rack Grover Norquist
who lobbies for the monied who has this country by the cahones
and who threatened all Republican politicians unless they signed
in blood to destroy this country as a country for its people, yes indeed
Democrats predict dire consequences if Republicans win elections. The
record of Republican politics is empirically verifiable. However, all
Democrats do not wail for more more more. They want to preserve the
economic/social programs needed by the less privileged. It is a ruse
accusation from the right… and far left who are frustrated and feel as if
they have been betrayed. It has become “fashionable” to whine and
denigrate Democrats.

Tucker is reactionary and uses too broad a brush to paint a fictitious
picture. All paintings are the conception of the painter. Tucker and
the other wailers, fail to make a distinction between some Democrats
who have sold their political power to the Corporatocrats and other
Democrats who have not. He makes accusations using fuzzy logic.
If he wants to make a decent argument, then he needs to say who of
the Democrats are being used by the dominating Corporatocrats, who
bend to the weight of money. Blanket accusations are misleading and
deceptive. It is irresponsible and commits the same kind of assault on
reason as the Right-Wing faction of politics does. In The Last Word,
Thomas Nagel wrote “Reason ... can serve as a court of appeal not only
against the received opinions and habits of the community but also
against the peculiarities of one’s personal perspective…Reason provides,
mysteriously, a way of distancing oneself from common and often
popular opinion and received practices… Whoever appeals to reason
tries to discover a source of authority within himself that is not merely
personal, or societal, but can qualify as universal, which would be able to
persuade others who are willing to listen to it.” The fact that particular
politicians stray from the essential ideology of a political party does not
nullify that ideology.

The two-party system is not specified in the Constitution, that is true.
It evolved as a political system in the early 19th century. Next post I’ll
give a very brief history. In all of history, there have been few instances
where third party candidates won any elections.

Okay, the shots at Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are great. Maybe some of the Democrats will finally see these charlatans for what they are - opportunistic, greedy, self-serving troglodytes who set the foundation for the financial debacle we call our economies and social state. Bill Clinton, the great humanitarian, set up his so-called foundation to give him cover to expand multinational enterprises while acting like he is doing something for people, but not the American people of course, just his rich friends.

But the article misses something: if we are to change the way things are going in the nation, we need to do two things - we need to run for office ourselves (which I have advocated for nearly 13 years now) and we need to abandon the two party system all together.

This means running not as third party candidates which merely allows us to choose between other parties, but rather to run outside of party politics as independent, non-affiliated candidates. We need to build our own grassroot organizations and keep them localized so that they focus only on the issues that are important to your constituents. We need to agree to run on a set of platforms and policies that put people and the environment first, and special interest issues at the back of the pack. Because it will only be in abandoning the two party system and taking control of our own governance that we can actually accomplish what we want done.

Go to http://www.weeeevoteaerica2012.org and find out what you need to do in your states to get on ballots in November 2012. Run for Congress and state legislatures. Run using the information for a platform on the website. Buy the book to give you more information, if you want (20% of the royalties go to feed the hungry), and use it to hold other candidates up to scrutiny. Only by winning against the party candidates can you actually create change in this country - a detail that seems to allude most people, including our President’s team.

I am running for president (http://www.devonnollforpresident2012.org) and I will be discussing the five principles on the platform in videos through the winter on YouTube. I will try to get people to get me on all 50 state ballots so that a real discussion can occur in 2012. I stand by these issues and the solutions I wrote about, and I am tired of being told by OWS that leadership is not needed. It is needed, and if no one else is willing to try to do it, then I will try.

But leadership is not enough; having a vision of a better America as we move forward is not enough; what is truly needed is for all of the rest of you to step out from behind your computers and run for office. You may not agree with my platform, but that is fine. Run on one that you think is better and in keeping with OWS if you want - BUT RUN FOR OFFICE, RUN FOR AMERICA AND HER FUTURE!

For some time the democrat’s main selling point is basically we’re not them, maybe you’re unhappy with us but they are worse. So most have been coerced, because of our closed 2 party system, to vote for the lesser (but hardly enough “lesser) of two corporately owned parties.

My sense is things are going to have to unravel a whole lot more to make enough people question where we’re going, enough to bring around real systemic change. The good/bad news is that day could be coming.

@ocjim, are Democrats not also depending on the corporate image of Obama? It’s all one big mirage to keep people in line with the corporate state.

As for the article, the problem is the wider American public isn’t even very class conscious, Occupy isn’t enough, you need a revolutionary, organized movement to is willing to do the hard work of organizing and seriously planning within the working class, the rural poor, the urban poor, the PROLETARIAT. Liberals are having a great time reliving with Occupy some of the fun from the anti-globalization days of 1999-2001, but just protesting and making grand statements isn’t enough. As Rosa Luxemburg warned, the choice is between socialism and barbarism, and the average American has no clue what that means.

The $$$$$$$$$ and wealth the rich hold was money made through speculation and fraud enabled by a corrupt Washington. It represents the stolen hard labor, sacrifice and death on battlefields around the World of countless Americans. Fascism is a serious evil. The fight has begun. Lose and the retribution will make the troubles we face today seem like paradise.

Keeping the message alive is a good thing but Mr. Tucker didn’t tell us anything we haven’t discussed here a thousand times. On the VOTE QUESTION: Just before the last Congressional elections TRUTHDIG had a constant drumbeat of posters calling for a no-vote consensus. Now we have Mr. Boehner, Mr. Cantor and Mrs. Bachman. Do yyou really think we’d be this far in the crapper if Democrats held both House and Senate?

THE VOTE is the most dangerous weapon we possess and the Republithugs know it. Absolute thinking is a serious mistake!! Stop being a professional victim and get in the fight. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!

Are these reporters from the mainstream media even talking about the same Occupy movement as the rest of us? Looking at the distorted way they are portraying events, it seems clear they have their own agenda.

At the end of Vonneguts Player Piano, after toppling the crooked state, members of the revolution begin the process of rebuilding by repairing a drink dispenser, the symbol of everything callous and exploitive.

The following cut and paste is timely indeed especially in light of posts of our resident loyalists who have begun their pre-election rants about the “dangers” inherent in not voting for their beloved and traitorous party:

In every big election, the Democratic Party threatens apocalypse if the Republican Party wins. 2012 is no different. No sane person argues that “worse is better.” No. Worse is worse. And worse is what we are getting as the two big corporate parties are polarized in Congress and yet keep each other in business. Is there not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democratic and Republican parties? Sure. But that question long ago became a partisan weapon, blunt as a caveman’s club. That question does not demand an answer, it only demands us to stop thinking we have the right to rebel against “our two-party system.” The two party system is not an act of God, and in fact has no foundation in our Constitution. That system of politics, much like the economic system of capitalism, is a human creation. What we create we can also change.

By bragging for the last 40 years about how great America is, you didn’t see the rug being pulled from under you as it was so gradual - jobs being lost to other countries, tax breaks for the rich for decades, lack of regulation of the financial industry, lack of choosing a third party like Ralph Nader because liberals congratulated themselves for voting Democrat hoping things would change under them (it didn’t), taxpayers financing corporate welfare while the average American could lose their shirt if there was a serious illness in the family due to high medical costs - I believe the average person doesn’t identify with their own class is where the trouble is otherwise Americans would have done something sooner - a fellow American’s success is not your success - it is only the success of the person enjoying it.

The Democratic party and the Repblican party have as much substance as a T.V.
Commercial for used cars…and about as much in the way of reliability…

The lesser of two evils or blind mans bluff? By subtrafuge they are advancing the
corporate agenda…The same corporations that sent your jobs and your children’s future,
along with all their money off shore, have plans for you and your money…

They plan to make you pay more, by blaming you for the collapse that they caused.

They are innoscent by dint of their wealth, you are guilty condemned by your poverty.
Through the political process they own, they will destroy your freedoms because you are
the only obstacle they face…And without your freedoms you are no threat to them, your
impoverishment, your suffering, your pain, insignificant to them….

How about sating what you really mean rather than hiding behind a computer screen. Forcing Oppression must be a rather dick pleasing sensation for you, making money off the ideas and talents of those you oppress.. Really though I hope you and the rest of mankind do have your information lined up correctly and a plan well thought out, other than music and Wallstreet Configurations, and websites visited by other lame a likes, because unfortunate for you but lucky for me I have learned to channel my thought processes, hiding the really important things or aka to you money making and life aka world changing things so you cant get them free. If there is a good cause behind your actions lemme hear it, cause right now I m right behind you and you think I m at the 30 yard line.. a few of us are…